Quadcast live stream tonight, 1/8/20, 8pm EST

QuadraphonicQuad

Help Support QuadraphonicQuad:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ArmyOfQuad

2K Club - QQ Super Nova
Since 2002/2003
Joined
Apr 22, 2002
Messages
2,320
Location
Attleboro, MA
Alright....been way too long since anything has been posted on the quadcast youtube channel. And I have seen a few new subscribers pop up recently. And certainly there has been a lot in the world of surround and quad and QQ to discuss.

So, perhaps we can call it a 2019 year in review for quad, the latest goings ons in the world of quad and the world of ArmyOfQuad, the state of the quad scene.....whatever.

As always, the more involvement, the more fun. The stream has the ability to type in the chat area, and I always have skype up for people to call in on skype.

Tonight, 8pmEST, http://www.youtube.com/c/TheQuadcast
 
Last edited:
Enjoyed watching. Had to go for dinner so missed most of it live. Hope you do more. It was fun
 
Thanks, glad some are enjoying watching my random ramblings. The connection dropped near the end, so I suppose it's good I was wrapping up at that point. I really work better with co-hosts, I'd love to turn this into a regular thing, perhaps monthly or every other week, but I could only be motivated to do so if I had a co-host.

I have co-hosts for my other streaming time wasters, but they aren't so much as into the quad thing. Other streams, my quad interest is more of a running joke, along the lines of:
an album is mentioned
"yeah, i have that in quad"
"you probably have barking dogs in quad"
"well.....there are sound effects quad albums.....I have trains...I have the ocean...."
cue laughter


Anyways, there is still an open invitation to anyone that wants to join the quadcast as a co-hosts. All you need is a microphone (a usb headset would be adequate), a webcam (not necessary, but would be nice to not have it just be video of me talking to a voice in my head), and a stable internet connection.
 
The new Auroran script is a world of difference when listening to classical music ambiance in the rear channels and easy to hear in quite passages, I may post some examples.
I agree that in loud rock music there is not much difference, If your into classical you'll want to do your decodes again, If rock/pop etc not really worth it.
 
The new Auroran script is a world of difference when listening to classical music ambiance in the rear channels and easy to hear in quite passages, I may post some examples.
I agree that in loud rock music there is not much difference, If your into classical you'll want to do your decodes again, If rock/pop etc not really worth it.

That's a good point. My big SQ test file does have a few classical cuts at the end of it, I haven't gotten that far in my comparison. I will have to take a listen, and perhaps revisit this on a future stream. Although the classical cuts I used are more of an enveloping quad mix, I may have to record in some ambiance mixes to run through the tests someday.
 
Just curious AOQ, I never hear you mention the possibility of owning a MOTU, any thoughts about their gear?
I've heard good things about motu, and know others around here do use them.

I'll have to do more research.

My biggest problem with finding a suitable audio interface replacement is that I need a feature that the m-audio happens to have, the ability to break out stereo pairs as windows stereo sound devices. It wasn't something I was looking for or expected when I picked up the m-audio, but it is something that by chance made my internet streaming so much easier and better, and now I can't live without that. I think I read the tascam interfaces do that, so that's why I'm leaning towards that. Others have recommended berhinger interfaces, but that's not a name I ever had much respect for, so I don't want to bring that into my quad converting chain. I may have to investigate what motu has, and if it will also break pairs out into windows devices.
 
My MOTU units allow recording of stereo pairs or mono channels. You just set what you want.
When I get to my big computer, I will show some screen shots
 
I'll plug MOTU. I've used the original 892 and 828, the 828mk2 and I currently still have two 828mk3 units. Very solid and reliable. The digital routing available is really on point. The AD and DA is OK. (Not great, not bad, but OK. Professional quality for sure.) I use Apogee AD and DA converters and feed the MOTUs from an Apogee AD-16 into ADAT/SMUX inputs. I've used this rig to run live sound even (using Reaper). Stable at low latency for that and you can achieve low latency with a relaxed block size with these units. These are still firewire. I'll honestly probably go to network audio instead of a thunderbolt interface moving forward. Definitely the direction everything is moving. The newer MOTU devices are on board with that too.

I thought the M-Audio units were some of the worst examples of audio interfaces you can find. Poor AD and DA. Poor stability. Poor latency (not for live sound use!)
They really have a feature to divide the interface into multiple virtual interfaces by stereo pair? If this isn't miscommunication... I've never heard of that! So... you see multiple (virtual) audio interfaces connected when you use that functionality instead of a single interface? What does that let you do though? You can already do what you please with the I/O. You would have to then make aggregate devices to re-combine them to use them together... obviously you'd use it normally before doing that... Is this intended to be a workaround for assigning separate inputs to different audio apps simultaneously? Except you can already do that... Or could it be a workaround aimed at Windows? (Windows is restricted for audio. Sometimes features like aggregate device config and even sharing connected devices between apps just isn't stable no matter what you try.)

Anyway, MOTU makes solid interfaces. Their AD and DA are not what you'd call boutique level like Apogee, Prism, or maybe RME but they're leaps and bounds above consumer receivers. And the handful of receivers with pro level DA converters are stupidly overpriced compared to a solid professional audio interface. When you start shopping in the "recording musician" catalog, your home system becomes a reference quality system and you spend a lot less at the same time.

A little comment about DA and AD quality the last decade. After making the snobby comments above... I have to admit that most pro level devices the last 10 years have a solid level of quality here that wasn't the case in the past. There use to be a very obvious increase in fidelity in the expensive units (Apogee and Prism) vs everything else. Nowadays even modest pro devices have the converters pretty nailed. Stuff like M-audio and consumer receivers can still be a bit ratty but things have evolved. For example, I'm used to my Apogee converters and True Audio mic preamps but I can't find anything wrong with the recordings I bring home off this budget Soundcraft 22MTK board at this club I work at.
 
Last edited:
Well, I will say the M-Audio interfaces were a step up from the Aardvark one.

What I mean is, if you go into your windows sound devices, the pairs of inputs and outputs on an m-audio device will show up as devices you can set. So, I could set the 1/2 output as my default windows sound device, the 1/2 input as the default recording device, and in skype I could set it to use the 3/4 in and 3/4 out. And in teamtalk set that to use the 5/6 in and 5/6 out. Then I wire it all in to my mixing board, setup sub mixes with aux sends, and can run a show with co-hosts in teamtalk, and take calls with skype. Maybe the m-audio isn't something of pro level, but it's worked great for live streaming like this, and also lets me record in quad things with the asio drivers in sound forge. It's just that it hasn't gotten any driver updates since Windows 7, and now it causes bluescreens from time to time, so it's time to find a suitable replacement.

At the moment I'm looking at this - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...c45-cd78f07a84d8&pf_rd_r=TFKVSYPFBVFMEAEEDXBH

Although it has a LOT of negative reviews. And I'm not sure if it will break out the multiple pairs into windows devices.

I was also looking at this - https://www.amazon.com/Tascam-US-16.../B07PHVLWJ6/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=8200GRT30FKD

I was looking at the tascam and the focusrite scarlet interfaces the last time I researched this. But I don't want to end up back in my current situation....owning hardware that does what I need it to do that hasn't broken down yet, but is becoming unusable due to a lack of support from the manufacturer. I am rather pissed at m-audio for forcing the obsolecense of my current hardware by not keeping up with drivers and pulling all support. And my concern is, what is to stop Tascam from ending all driver updates the day after I buy the product? Focusrite pointed to a very good track record of continuing to update drivers for older hardware. Tascam gave me no reassurances. But....the focusrite has proven to be completely useless for streaming and quad conversions with the lack of ability to adjust levels or breakout stereo pairs into windows devices, so that brings me back to looking at the Tascam. Or maybe a motu.

Meanwhile, the m-audio 44 seems to not be bluescreening things. I'm not sure why, the 1010lt and 44 use the same driver, but, the 44 seems to be more stable, I haven't gotten a bluescreen yet, so that has bought me some time to figure out what to purchase.
 
Hmmm...
That sounds like normal use assigning I/O from a single connected interface. If there's something going on like some app that only lets you connect to channels 1/2, for example and not 7/8... and then the M-Audio had a "separate virtual device" feature to work around that... That sounds like what you're talking about. There are solutions for that though! Apps like Soundflower or Loopback work like a virtual audio device and let you route audio between apps as you please. I've used Soundflower for many years now. Loopback is the new paid version.
The MOTU units also have advanced routing. And digital mixers built-in. (Some of the newer models have full featured mixers built-in - like that X32 mixer - aimed at running live sound.) You could re-route everything in the control panel as you pleased too. You'd be pretty covered! You can do a lot with your DAW app too depending on what app you use. Check out Reaper if you haven't. It was a big upgrade from Protools HD for me 10 years ago. It's what the BBC use (if you like name drops). They make a Windows version too. And now Linux! OSX of course.

I don't mean to be too dismissive of even M-Audio. It's more that nearly every other choice is so much more bang for the buck! We really do live in the golden age of audio now with all this stuff available!

There may be some across the board restriction with streaming apps that I'm not aware of. (There's always something with just about everything, right? :D) I've run across apps that only let you connect to channels 1/2 of any audio interface, for example. (Ahem, Firefox a long time ago for example!) Soundflower or Loopback is the SOP solution for that kind of thing. There are a couple other virtual device apps out there as well.

I use Soundflower, for example, to "insert" a DAW app between a media player app and the connected audio interface for speaker management control.

I remember Aardvark from back when they had the sample rate clock upgrade that made your ADAT converters run with less jitter. But that was a long time ago and much has changed!
 
Last edited:
Well, I will say the M-Audio interfaces were a step up from the Aardvark one.

What I mean is, if you go into your windows sound devices, the pairs of inputs and outputs on an m-audio device will show up as devices you can set. So, I could set the 1/2 output as my default windows sound device, the 1/2 input as the default recording device, and in skype I could set it to use the 3/4 in and 3/4 out. And in teamtalk set that to use the 5/6 in and 5/6 out. Then I wire it all in to my mixing board, setup sub mixes with aux sends, and can run a show with co-hosts in teamtalk, and take calls with skype. Maybe the m-audio isn't something of pro level, but it's worked great for live streaming like this, and also lets me record in quad things with the asio drivers in sound forge. It's just that it hasn't gotten any driver updates since Windows 7, and now it causes bluescreens from time to time, so it's time to find a suitable replacement.

At the moment I'm looking at this - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B...c45-cd78f07a84d8&pf_rd_r=TFKVSYPFBVFMEAEEDXBH

Although it has a LOT of negative reviews. And I'm not sure if it will break out the multiple pairs into windows devices.

I was also looking at this - https://www.amazon.com/Tascam-US-16.../B07PHVLWJ6/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=8200GRT30FKD

I was looking at the tascam and the focusrite scarlet interfaces the last time I researched this. But I don't want to end up back in my current situation....owning hardware that does what I need it to do that hasn't broken down yet, but is becoming unusable due to a lack of support from the manufacturer. I am rather pissed at m-audio for forcing the obsolecense of my current hardware by not keeping up with drivers and pulling all support. And my concern is, what is to stop Tascam from ending all driver updates the day after I buy the product? Focusrite pointed to a very good track record of continuing to update drivers for older hardware. Tascam gave me no reassurances. But....the focusrite has proven to be completely useless for streaming and quad conversions with the lack of ability to adjust levels or breakout stereo pairs into windows devices, so that brings me back to looking at the Tascam. Or maybe a motu.

Meanwhile, the m-audio 44 seems to not be bluescreening things. I'm not sure why, the 1010lt and 44 use the same driver, but, the 44 seems to be more stable, I haven't gotten a bluescreen yet, so that has bought me some time to figure out what to purchase.
Alright....been way too long since anything has been posted on the quadcast youtube channel. And I have seen a few new subscribers pop up recently. And certainly there has been a lot in the world of surround and quad and QQ to discuss.

So, perhaps we can call it a 2019 year in review for quad, the latest goings ons in the world of quad and the world of ArmyOfQuad, the state of the quad scene.....whatever.

As always, the more involvement, the more fun. The stream has the ability to type in the chat area, and I always have skype up for people to call in on skype.

Tonight, 8pmEST, http://www.
Thanks, glad some are enjoying watching my random ramblings. The connection dropped near the end, so I suppose it's good I was wrapping up at that point. I really work better with co-hosts, I'd love to turn this into a regular thing, perhaps monthly or every other week, but I could only be motivated to do so if I had a co-host.

I have co-hosts for my other streaming time wasters, but they aren't so much as into the quad thing. Other streams, my quad interest is more of a running joke, along the lines of:
an album is mentioned
"yeah, i have that in quad"
"you probably have barking dogs in quad"
"well.....there are sound effects quad albums.....I have trains...I have the ocean...."
cue laughter


Anyways, there is still an open invitation to anyone that wants to join the quadcast as a co-hosts. All you need is a microphone (a usb headset would be adequate), a webcam (not necessary, but would be nice to not have it just be video of me talking to a voice in my head), and a stable internet connection.
I watched your Q/Cast a few hours after It was aired
But I wanted to let that Dark Side of The Moon is in QS i have both SQ and QS and if you play QS with SQ
decoder with the intro of Money there is not the surround effect
Ron
.com/c/TheQuadcast
 
Back
Top